Spice Up Your Life

This weekend was action packed, and ended with Megan and I watching Spice World. It was my first time seeing it, and probably my last time seeing it. Although the movie inside a movie inside a movie with 8 different plot lines was way ahead of its’ time.

Friday was spent kind of watercoloring and then an attempt to find a beer garden that overlooks the city in Letna Park. We kind of wandered around the park and ran into a giant metronome and a big concrete space filled with skate boarders and kids drinking beer. It reminded me of the brick yard (?), sort of. Anyways we got pointed in the direction of the beer garden and eventually ran into one, although it wasn’t the one we were looking for. It had a cool atmosphere though and we all got some brews with potato pancakes of course.

Saturday was CRAZY. We woke up at 8 and were headed to the gypsy market by 9. It was pretty much just a normal flea market, except with more sausages and Nazi paraphernalia than I would normally see. I got a Mucha book, and then we went to a Design market that was going on near the river. This one was definitely more clean and had lots of beautiful handmade t-shirts, jewelry, and bags.

Afterwards, we went to Dish Fine Burger Bistro. This place was recommended to my friends by their ID professor who is a food critic specializing in burgers, soo needless to say my expectations were very high. With my first bite, I knew that this burger was the best burger I’ve ever tasted in my life. It’s been 3 days and I’m still thinking about it. Their professor said he rated these burgers at a 4.5 out of 5, right behind Chuck’s Burgers in downtown Raleigh.

This weekend was also the United Islands Music Festival happening in a park right outside of the city (it’s usually in the city on the islands of the river, but due to flooding this couldn’t happen). The park was awesome though, there were 5 stages with tons of green space for hanging out in. We got there at about 5 and listened to one band for a while until the heavens opened up and rain poured down for a good 15 minutes. It wasn’t that bad, but it was definitely enough to get my friend group split up for the next hour or two (One of the only times I’ve missed having my cell phone). Gary and I wandered around for a bit, got some beer and chicken, and then sat down and scanned the crowds. We eventually did find them right before the main headliner, Aloe Blacc, took the main stage.

Aloe Blacc “You Make Me Smile” from The Qualities of Light on Vimeo.

I’d never heard of this  man before or any of his songs, but he rocked it. He had us all singing along and dancing for the next hour. These are some of his songs, I think they were better live but they’re still pretty good on here.

  

After the concert ended, we took a long tram ride back to the city and hit up U Sudu and then Chapeau Rouge for some house music dancing, but Megan and I mostly just people watched and rested her ankle. A pair of Europeans were talking to us & were very easily convinced that we KNEW Michael Jordan simply because we were from NC…

We raced through the streets to catch the night tram (It only comes every 40 minutes) as it passed us on the road. We made it, and got back to the Pension safe and sound just before sunrise. We went to Radost for brunch in the morning per usual, and then to the Institute for some afternoon watercoloring and skyping. This is our last week of class! I’m 3 watercolors away from being done 🙂 I can’t wait.

 

More Mucha

This week has been mostly painting with a few trips around the city thrown into class time. Continuing with our slight obsession with Alphonse Mucha, our class went to go see his series “Slav Epic” in the National Gallery. It consists of 20 HUGE paintings that depict the history of the Czech and Slavic people which he gave to the city of Prague upon its’ completion in 1928. I honestly wasn’t aware that these even existed, and it was a great surprise and shock to see how amazing the pieces were.

This week our class was also taken to one of Prague’s design schools. We were able to go through the students’ studios and see what kids our age have been doing here. It was really cool, and the building sort of reminded me of a taller version of our own design building.. except with less strict fire codes. It was awesome to be able to wander around though, they had some beautiful glass and pottery work, and I did really like the graphic design studio. I felt like a total nerd because of how good it felt to be surrounded by typography again.

 

As with my own designing, here’s an update on my paintings, i still have 3.2 more to do for Thursday and then I’m DONE with classes! This series is supposed to be our reflection or Prague, and the pieces themselves need to each incorporate some sort of reflection.

 

Summer Showed Up

*Knock on wood*

It’s sunny and kind of warm and it hasn’t rained in TWO DAYS. I’m so happyyyyy.

This week has been relaxing and wonderful: lots of reading, running, making omelets, watching chick flicks with Megan, and painting.

Here’s an update, I’m not in love with any of them but I’ll show them for progress’ sake.

For this series, we’re supposed to be inspired by graffiti around the city and play with layering. The top piece isn’t finished yet but it’s almost there, I still have the masking fluid drying on it right now that I’ll take off tomorrow. Below are some of my favorites from our mini graffiti tour we had on Monday. It was only a little sketchy.

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Below are from my last series about my found object from the museum we went to a while ago. We were supposed to use different means to emphasize the object through its color, shape, and placement.

This week has mainly been figuring out my paintings and catching up on sleep after Poland. Megan and I have been running a few times, and ventured up to Petrin Hill this weekend — It’s this huge hill in the middle of the city that has a beautiful view from the top. The run up was a pain but it’s flat on the top and I’ll most likely drag her up there a couple more times before we leave 🙂

This weekend I’m trying to get myself to Kutná Hora; it’s only about an hour away and has an entire church decorated with human bones. As my parents said — “Well, that’s Europe for you”. I’m really excited though. Probably too excited.

Sunshine? What is that?

Sorry I haven’t written for the past week; it’s been raining THE ENTIRE TIME. Just my luck that while I’m here, Prague is having the coldest summer in 260 years, and also the worst rainfall in 11 years. Perfect. I also don’t have an umbrella and the soles of my boots are coming off. Good, good.

If you haven’t, Google the Prague flooding that’s been happening.

For most of last week, I was just painting a lot. It’s hard to paint when the weather is nice because I just wish I was outside. But gross, cold, rainy weather isn’t that motivational either. The days dragged on, I managed to get like one and a half paintings almost done? Here’s an in-progress of one:

On Friday, a large group of us were supposed to go to the Bee Institute across the river to learn about honey bees? It really was just walking around a lot in cold rain waiting for a bus to show up, 2 hours later the trip was cancelled and we made our way back to school. I worked on watercolors for a while and then was asked by my friends if I wanted to go to the Beer Museum. I thought it was a little late for a museum to be open, but school was closing and my spirit had not yet been broken by the endless rain. Was I stupid to think that it was actually a museum? Maybe. Probably. Yes. Because of course it was a bar.

BUT it was an awesome bar, because you could get small samples of tons of different beers. After 10 samples, my favorite has become Ferdinand special lager, which is described as “clear, deep golden in color with a pleasant herbal flavor and a hint of vanilla”, the second favorite went to Ferdinand’s Sedm Kuli Amber Lager, which is “flavored with black licorice,  black pepper, and basil, with tones of caramel, dark malt, dried plums, vanilla and candy sugar”. I also didn’t mind the honey or banana falvors, but my least favorite was the chocolate beer (whattt) and this horrible IPA. Overall, we had a lot of fun and walked through the rain to get some fried cheese sandwiches before heading back to the Pension.

On Friday, Megan and I got up early to eat breakfast and then got on the metro to head to the best rainy-day weather destination: IKEA. I had never been to an IKEA before, and was sad to hear that this one is not as good as the one in Charlotte. What is this about? If I’m in Eastern Europe I expect the most fulfilling and perfect IKEA experience ever created. It was still pretty cool though, and wasted a good part of the afternoon. Megan also found her dream shower curtain:

Afterwards, we went to the  mall next door & saw The Great Gatsby! I just finished the book a few days ago, and thought that the movie was OK. I’m not sure if I like it yet, but now that I know it was done by the same director as Moulin Rouge, I think I do. Seeing Leo die on screen (again) was still a painful experience.

The last couple of days have really just been a blur of cheap Vietnamese food and movies. Classes were cancelled on Monday and Tuesday due to metro flooding and high river levels. The rain has kind of put everyone into a funk, I know that I didn’t feel like doing anything this weekend. Thankfully, Megan has a ton of movies on her laptop and has also agreed to start running with me! We’ve been a couple of times this week when the rain has stopped for more than 2 minutes, and I’m starting to feel better already. Now we need to make sure that the amount of bread and potatoes we eat is balanced out by the amount of running we do (?). It would also be nice if Czech people didn’t stare at us like total weirdos when we’re running around. But oh well.

Yesterday, the 6th day of rain, was like Christmas for several reasons. For one, we got to sleep in. I got to use my new conditioner after using only shampoo for over 2 weeks. I also found a pair of jeans in my closet that I haven’t worn yet. After that amazing discovery, Megan, Gary, Jasper and myself went to The Globe for lunch. I had not been to The Globe before, but it was absolutely wonderful. Everyone spoke English perfectly, they had cheeseburgers and mac & cheese, an English bookstore, and free Wifi! I wanted to cry with happiness. It felt like home, and we ended up sitting at our table for the next 5 hours. I ordered the Colonel Panini with chicken, avocado, and french fries with ketchup(!) and the most delicious hot tea I’ve ever had IN MY LIFE. It’s called Harney & Sons, and Megan and I were beside ourselves with how good it was. I bought The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest and read for most of the afternoon.

Once we hit happy hour, we decided that we may have outstayed our visit and went outside. It was freezing, but it had also stopped raining!! We were near the river, so we went to go explore some flooding.

These really aren’t that exciting, but the river was about 15 feet over what it normally is.

After getting back to the Pension, I had a relaxing night watching Game of Thrones (!!!!!) with Jasper and then Collateral with Gary. Today is cold but thankfully not raining, and after going on a run this morning I’m back at school trying to force myself to paint (not really). But soon. Tonight, I’m going with a lage group of people to see the Sleeping Beauty Ballet and I am beyond excited 🙂 Hopefully more interesting and blog-worthy things will happen this week!

 

Proof That I Go To Class

Besides eating a ton of food, sight seeing, and having stupid amounts of fun with my friends, I have surprisingly also been going to class. We kind of got thrown into this project, but we’re slowly being taught how to do it? We kind of just try to paint something and then the teachers walk around and tell us what else to do.

The first assignment is a series of three paintings due on Tuesday — The first painting is of a piece of paper we shaped however we felt like (using only one color), the second is meant to be zoomed in on that form, revealing some kind of threshold there (inspired by the city, using 2 pigments), and the third is whatever we want to be behind that threshold (using all 3 pigments, yikes). I’ve done the first two, and just decided what my third will be. I sat in the tea shop downstairs today for a while sketching and soaking in the atmosphere. It was actually eerily quiet; the only thing making noise was my pencil. But oh well, I drank my plum tea and figured out the composition for my last painting.